PENTECOST

A name used in the Christian Greek Scriptures to denote the Festival of Harvest (Ex 23:16) or Festival of Weeks (Ex 34:22), called also “the day of the first ripe fruits.” (Nu 28:26) Instructions for this festival are found at Leviticus 23:15-21; Numbers 28:26-31; Deuteronomy 16:9-12. It was to be celebrated on the 50th day (Pentecost means “Fiftieth [Day]”) from Nisan 16, the day that the barley sheaf was offered. (Le 23:15, 16) In the Jewish calendar it falls on Sivan 6. It was after the barley harvest and the beginning of the harvest of wheat, which ripened later than the barley.​—Ex 9:31, 32.

The Israelites were not allowed to begin the harvest until the firstfruits of the barley had been presented to Jehovah on Nisan 16. Therefore, in Deuteronomy 16:9, 10 the instructions are: “From when the sickle is first put to the standing grain you will start to count seven weeks. Then you must celebrate the festival of weeks to Jehovah your God.” Every male was required to attend, and it is also stated in connection with this festival: “You must rejoice before Jehovah your God, you and your son and your daughter and your man slave and your slave girl and the Levite who is inside your gates and the alien resident and the fatherless boy and the widow, who are in your midst, in the place that Jehovah your God will choose to have his name reside there.” (De 16:11) The Passover was a close family observance. The Festival of Harvest, or Pentecost, called for a more open and hospitable liberality, in this sense resembling the Festival of Booths.

The firstfruits of the wheat harvest were to be treated differently from the barley firstfruits. Two tenths of an ephah of fine wheat flour (4.4 L; 4 dry qt) along with leaven was to be baked into two loaves. They were to be “out of your dwelling places,” which meant that they were to be loaves like those made for the daily use of the household and not expressly for holy purposes. (Le 23:17) Burnt offerings and a sin offering went along with this, and as a communion offering two male lambs. The priest waved the loaves and the lambs before Jehovah by putting his hands underneath the loaves and the pieces of the lambs and waving them back and forth, signifying that they were presented before Jehovah. After the loaves and the lambs were offered, they became the priest’s for him to eat as a communion offering.​—Le 23:18-20.

There is a slight difference in description of the other offerings (aside from the communion offering) in the account at Numbers 28:27-30. Instead of seven lambs, one young bull, two rams, and one kid of the goats, as at Leviticus 23:18, 19, it calls for seven lambs, two young bulls, one ram, and one kid of the goats. Jewish commentators say that the passage in Leviticus refers to the sacrifice to accompany the wave loaves, and the one in Numbers to the properly appointed sacrifice of the festival, so that both were offered. Supporting this, Josephus, in describing the sacrifices on Pentecost day, first mentions the two lambs of the communion offering, then combines the remaining offerings, enumerating three calves, two rams (evidently a transcriber’s error for three), 14 lambs, and two kids. (Jewish Antiquities, III, 253 [x, 6]) The day was a holy convention, a sabbath day.​—Le 23:21; Nu 28:26.

There would also be many personal offerings of the firstfruits of the harvest during this festival.

After the regular daily morning sacrifice was offered, the festive sacrifices described in Numbers 28:26-30 were brought. Afterward came the offering peculiar to Pentecost​—the wave loaves with their accompanying sacrifices. (Le 23:18-20) After the loaves were waved, one of them was taken by the high priest, and the second was divided among all the officiating priests.